Born: 1 March 1925, Dominican Republic
Died: 1 February 2014
Country most active: Dominican Republic
Also known as: Bélgica Adela Mirabal Reyes
The story of the Mirabal sisters is one of three martyrs, and the survivor who ensured they would not be forgotten.
Between 1930 and 1961, thousands of people were killed, tortured, or imprisoned under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Patria, the oldest of the sisters, was born in 1924, followed by Dedé in 1925, Minerva in 1927 and María Teresa in 1935 – they grew up under this brutal regime, with Minerva hearing from a classmate about the girl’s entire family being taken. In 1949, the family attended a party thrown by Trujillo, aware of the danger to those who refused such invitations. Minerva was forced to dance with Trujillo – a man old enough to be her grandfather – three times, rejecting his sexual advances and finally leaving him in the middle of the dance floor. The offense he felt was compounded when the family left shortly afterward. Minerva and her parents were imprisoned the next day and their family property confiscated. Although Minerva and her mother were released and allowed to return to their home several weeks later, her father remained was not.
In 1957, Minerva graduated with honors from law school, but despite her academic excellence and role as one of the first women in the Dominican Republic to earn a law degree, she was denied governmental authorization to practice professionally – likely due to her opposition to Trujillo.
Two years later, Minerva, Patria and María Teresa, along with Minerva’s husband and many others, started the Movimiento 14 de Junio (June 14th Movement). 14J, as it was known, worked to undermine, and eventually overthrow, Trujillo’s government. The three sisters were code named Las Mariposas, or The Butterflies, and played key roles in organizing the middle class.
In 1960, Minerva and María Teresa were arrested with their husbands and others in the movement – although Trujillo released the sisters due to pressure from the United States and the Catholic Church, their husbands remained imprisoned. Despite surveillance and harassment, the sisters continued working against Trujillo, and, while returning from visiting Minerva and María Teresa’s husbands on 25 November 1960, Minerva, Patria and María Teresa were detained by Trujillo’s thugs and murdered, with their car pushed off a cliff in a transparent attempt to make their deaths look like an accident.
Many people both in the Dominican Republic and abroad did not believe the lie, and Trujillo was assassinated just six months later. The sisters’ activism, and their deaths, are widely considered key factors in ending his regime. Their story was immortalized in, among other versions, the 1994 novel In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alverez, the American-born child of Dominican exiles, whose father was a member of the resistance. The book was later adapted into a film in 2001.
Dedé, the often overlooked fourth sister, could be any one of countless women throughout history who did the important but unacknowledged behind-the-scenes work that enables people like her sisters to do what they did. While her sisters went to college, she stayed home and helped with the family business, taking over the family’s finances when their father died following his imprisonment. When her sisters were murdered, and with their husbands imprisoned, she raised their children, continuing childcare she was likely providing while the children’s parents fought to overthrow Trujillo.
Then, like many women, Dedé worked to ensure the legacy of those she loved, opening the family’s home to the public as a museum and establishing the Mirabal Sisters Foundation in 1994, serving as president until her own death in 2014. Yet such contributions commonly are ignored, and Dedé is frequently left out when her sisters are honored, such as the 200 peso bill that features only her three sisters.
In 1999, the United Nations announced that 25 November would be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the date chosen in recognition of the deaths of Minerva, Patria and María Teresa.